


Run as Fast as You Possibly Can

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the curse breaks.</p><p>so she runs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I.

Wendy hears someone calling after her, as she runs down the street, towards the trees  _(faster, faster, faster_ ), she thinks it might be Mary Margaret, but she doesn’t think to look, not when the memories have come  _back_ , not when her head is filled with memories of a jungle far, far away from here and  _him, him, him_.

She hasn’t seen Peter since the curse broke, since she’d nearly retched outside Granny’s diner, but as soon as she had remembered, her feet had been flying faster than she ever remembered the Shadow doing in Neverland. Her feet know where to carry, her body  _knows_  that it has to get away now that her  _head_  has finally caught up with the rest of her.

(Her bones somehow  _knew_ , it’s why she always wanted to  _run_  when he was near, when he leaned in close, when he  _smiled_  that feral smile, the one that makes something in her belly  _twist_. Her insides were trying to  _tell_  her to get away,  _away away away from the wild boy_ _._ )

She runs, but her mind is not on the ground in front of her; it’s focusing on the fact that her cursed self is  _reeling_  from being the same girl who was kept on an  _island_  with  _Peter Pan_ , and the other fact that her real self didn’t actually  _realize_  who Peter was until the curse had been  _broken_.

**“ _Wendy!”_**

Her throat closes up, and she chokes, stumbles, at the sound of  _his_ voice, from somewhere far behind her, and she only has to glance back over her shoulder to see that Peter ( _Peter, Peter, Peter Pan_ ) is running after her. Some of the townsfolk are staring, at the two of them, but no one helps her (because no one actually  _knows_  it’s him which makes this all  _so much worse_ ).

So she only pushes her body  _faster faster faster_ , even though she’s having trouble getting air into her lungs, because, for the first time, in a  _long_ time, Wendy is  _terrified_.

It’s been too long since they actually saw each other, too long since, well … She feels like it’s starting all over again, the chases. The games. She hasn’t been chased since she woke up, so, of  _course_  terror pumps through her like the blood through her veins. The fear knots itself up in nervous knots and it’s suffocating her, but she  _can’t can’t can’t_ let him get her, not now -

She feels a body collide with hers from behind, and a cry rips itself from her throat as it knocks her onto the ground. She’s still in the middle of the street, and people are walking towards them. Thinking she might taste blood in her mouth at any moment, she struggles away from him, does her best not to  _look him in the face._  She’s shrieking and screeching and  _hollering_  as hands fly onto her body, iron grip too familiar, yet foreign because  _it’s been a long time_.

Wendy finally lets her elbow fly backwards, and she hits him in the throat ( **oops** ), and takes her chances as she leaps away from him, but doesn’t start running again. She only whirls around, arms flying to go around her midsection, and she stares as he gets to his feet. People have stopped, as they have stopped, and everyone is watching them.

Peter’s breathing has returned to normal, and there’s a smile on his face. His stance is confident (arrogant, all over again), and he holds is arms away from himself, spreading them like wings, almost, and he’s grinning from ear to ear.

The grin is a thing she hasn’t seen for a long, long time, and it’s almost just like she remembers it: teeth, malice, and triumph radiate from his person. He is oblivious to the townsfolk watching from a distance.

(And she hadn’t even gotten that  _far_. Not even to the edge of town.)

His eyes are locked on her, and only her, as she stands stock-still in the middle of the road, her arms clutching at herself desperately as memories fill her head and a feeling, that’s something like defeat, clings to her like how disease clings to healthy flesh and bones, but not like how fear has wrapped its fingers tightly around her throat, making it  _so hard to breathe._

The words that come out of his mouth next seem to slither down her spine, and embed themselves in her bones:

"Welcome  _back_ , darling.”


	2. Part II.

Welcome … back …

Peter’s words ring in her ears, and she truly feels like collapsing onto the pavement, onto her knees, and begin heaving out gasping sobs (the kind that suffocate you), and she nearly does, because he knees wobble, and the world seems to tilt, but there are solid arms around her, and he’s whispering into her hair.  
“What the hell is going on?”

Her head snaps up, as she tries to breathe in, and breathe out (they’re all back), and sees Ruby, with her Granny standing right behind her a few feet away. Ruby looks dangerous, guarded, but her grandmother.

Well, she looks furious.

"Nothing to see here," Peter sneers, still holding Wendy upright, because she’s probably going to throw up at any minute, or pass out, or -

"What’s your name, boy?” Granny asks, her eyes narrowed. Suspicious. Good of her, the once-Lost Girl thinks. “Your real name.”

Wendy is now trying to push Peter away from her, and, with a shrug of his shoulder, the cage of his arms is suddenly gone, and she’s backing away from him on shaky limbs. Ruby is at her side, an arm around her waist, looking positively mad.

(Peter thinks this is just great.)

"I," he says, holding his arms out, while he bows (mocking them) "am Peter, Peter Pan, and, the girl you’re holding, Ruby, is Wendy. Wendy Darling.” 

(He hasn’t tasted that name on his lips for so long.)

Ruby’s eyes widen, just a bit, and she looks from Peter, to Wendy, from Peter, to Wendy again, and she says, “I don’t think we’ve met.”

"No, we haven’t, because I’m not really from where this whole thing originated.” His arrogant grin is grating on their nerves. Other townsfolk have left the scene, but a few (a few faces that both Peter and Wendy recognize from before waking up) are still remaining, looking from Granny, to Ruby and Wendy, to Peter.

"Well, at the time, I was in your Enchanted Forest,” Peter says, almost conversationally, but Wendy’s only half-listening, her mind is too crowded, too jumbled (- run, run, run, I think I’m going to throw up, I can’t - I can’t deal with this, not now - I - let me go, let me cry, let me run -), and she clings to Ruby like the girl is a lifeline. “To celebrate a special occasion - ” (her one-hundred years on the island, she recalls distantly) ” - and then, we ended up here.”

Wendy begins to try and push Ruby away, but Ruby’s hold on her has now tightened. Granny has opened her mouth, to speak, but then Peter is striding towards Ruby. A bony, skeletal hand reaches out, fast, grabs Wendy by the arm, and yanks her away from Ruby.

He doesn’t hold on to her this time, he only makes sure she stands beside him. She’s got her lips thinned together in a straight line, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s cold.

Someone is calling for Ruby, and when Ruby turns her head, to see who it is (David, maybe), Peter takes his darling by the hand begins leading (tugging) her away, smirking.

"Where do you think you’re going, boy?”

Peter laughs at the old woman’s words. With a glance over his shoulder, still tugging his mouse along by the wrist (there are tears in her eyes and that really bothers him), he says, “Home, we’re going to go home.”

“‘S not home,”

He stops, and looks down at Wendy, who is furiously scrubbing at her eyes (they are red, puffy, red).

"What?" his grin is gone.

"This place," he says shakily, "it’s not. home.”

Peter blinks, shrugs, and resumes tugging her along. Where to, exactly, he’s not sure (the beach? the beach here is too gravely to be a real beach, but it still reminds him of Neverland, of where his bones were grown), but he has to get them (her) back to the island.

Felix isn’t here, none of the Lost Boys are, and he’s not sure how long he’s been under, and so Neverland has been king-less for a while.

(Well, he thinks, glancing at Wendy every so often out of the corner of his eye, the king is coming home.)


End file.
